And in the abyss of brightness dares to span
The sun's broad circle, rising yet more high,
In God's magnificent works his will shall scan-
And love and peace shall make their paradise with man.

Sit at the feet of history-through the night
Of years the steps of virtue she shall trace,
And show the earlier ages, where her sight
Can pierce the eternal shadows o'er their face ;-
When, from the genial cradle of our race,
Went forth the tribes of men, their pleasant lot

To choose, where palm-groves cool'd their dwelling place,
Or freshening rivers ran; and there forgot

The truth of heaven, and kneel'd to gods that heard them not.

Then waited not the murderer for the night,
But smote his brother down in the bright day,
And he who felt the wrong, and had the might,
His own avenger, girt himself to slay;
Beside the path the unburied carcass lay;
The shepherd, by the fountains of the glen,
Fled, while the robber swept his flock away,
And slew his babes. The sick, untended then,
Languish'd in the damp shade, and died afar from men.

But misery brought in love-in passion's strife
Man gave his heart to mercy pleading long,
And sought out gentle deeds to gladden life;
The weak, against the sons of spoil and wrong,
Banded, and watch'd their hamlets, and grew strong.
States rose, and, in the shadow of their might,
The timid rested. To the reverent throng,

Grave and time-wrinkled men, with locks all white, Gave laws, and judged their strifes, and taught the way of right.

Till bolder spirits seized the rule, and nail'd
On men the yoke that man should never bear,
And drove them forth to battle: Lo! unveil'd
The scene of those stern ages! What is there?
A boundless sea of blood, and the wild air
Moans with the crimson surges that intomb
Cities and banner'd armies; forms that wear
The kingly circlet, rise, amid the gloom,

O'er the dark wave, and straight are swallow'd in its womb.

Those ages have no memory-but they left
A record in the desert-columns strown
On the waste sands, and statues fall'n and cleft,
Heap'd like a host in battle overthrown;

Vast ruins, where the mountain's ribs of stone
Were hewn into a city; streets that spread

In the dark earth, where never breath has blown
Of heaven's sweet air, nor foot of man dares tread
The long and perilous ways-the cities of the dead;

And tombs of monarchs to the clouds up-piled-
They perish'd-but the eternal tombs remain-
And the black precipice, abrupt and wild,
Pierced by long toil and hollow'd to a fane ;-
Huge piers and frowning forms of gods sustain
The everlasting arches, dark and wide,

Like the night heaven when clouds are black with rain.
But idly skill was task'd, and strength was plied,

All was the work of slaves, to swell a despot's pride.

And virtue cannot dwell with slaves, nor reign
O'er those who cower to take a tyrant's yoke;
She left the down-trod nations in disdain,
And flew to Greece, when liberty awoke,
New-born, amid those beautiful vales, and broke
Sceptre and chain with her fair youthful hands,
As the rock shivers in the thunder stroke.

And lo! in full-grown strength, an empire stands
Of leagued and rival states, the wonder of the lands.

Oh Greece! thy flourishing cities were a spoil
Unto each other; thy hard hand oppress'd
And crush'd the helpless; thou didst make thy soil
Drunk with the blood of those that loved thee best;
And thou didst drive, from thy unnatural breast,
Thy just and brave to die in distant climes;
Earth shudder'd at thy deeds, and sigh'd for rest
From thine abominations; after times

That yet shall read thy tale, will tremble at thy crimes.

Yet there was that within thee which has saved
Thy glory, and redeem'd thy blotted name;
The story of thy better deeds, engraved
On fame's unmouldering pillar, puts to shame
Our chiller virtue; the high art to tame

The whirlwind of thy passions was thine own;
And the pure ray, that from thy bosom came,

Far over many a land and age has shone,

And mingles with the light that beams from God's own throne.

And Rome, thy sterner, younger sister, she
Who awed the world with her imperial frown,
Drew the deep spirit of her race from thee,—
The rival of thy shame and thy renown.

Yet her degenerate children sold the crown
Of earth's wide kingdoms to a line of slaves;

Guilt reign'd, and wo with guilt, and plagues came down, Till the North broke its flood gates, and the waves Whelm'd the degraded race, and welter'd o'er their graves.

Vainly that ray of brightness from above,
That shone around the Galilean lake,

The light of hope, the leading star of love,
Struggled, the darkness of that day to break;
Even its own faithless guardians strove to slake,
In fogs of earth, the pure immortal flame;
And priestly hands, for Jesus' blessed sake,
Were red with blood, and charity became
In that stern war of forms, a mockery and a name.

They triumph'd, and less bloody rites were kept
Within the quiet of the convent cell;

The well-fed inmates patter'd prayer, and slept,
And sinn'd, and liked their easy penance well.
Where pleasant was the spot for men to dwell,
Amid its fair broad lands the abbey lay,

Sheltering dark orgies that were shame to tell
And cowl'd and barefoot beggars swarm'd the way,
All in their convent weeds, of black, and white, and gray.

Oh, sweetly the returning muses' strain

Swell'd over that famed stream, whose gentle tide

In their bright lap the Etrurian vales detain,

Sweet, as when winter storms have ceased to chide,
And all the new leaved woods, resounding wide,
Send out wild hymns upon the scented air.

Lo! to the smiling Arno's classic side

The emulous nations of the west repair,

And kindle their quench'd urns, and drink fresh spirit there.

Still, heaven deferr'd the hour ordain'd to rend From saintly rottenness the sacred stole ; And cowl and worshipp'd shrine could still defend The wretch with felon stains upon his soul; And crimes were set to sale, and hard his dole Who could not bribe a passage to the skies; And vice beneath the mitre's kind control, Sinn'd gaily on, and grew to giant size, Shielded by priestly power, and watch'd by priestly eyes.

At last the earthquake came-the shock, that hurl'd To earth, in many fragments dash'd and strown, The throne, whose roots were in another world, And whose far stretching shadow awed our own. From many a proud monastic pile, o'erthrown, Fear-struck, the hooded inmates rush'd and fled; The web, that for a thousand years had grown O'er prostrate Europe, in that day of dread Crumbled and fell, as fire dissolves the flaxen thread.

The spirit of that day is still awake,

And spreads himself, and shall not sleep again;
But through the idle mesh of power shall break,
Like billows o'er the Asian monarch's chain;
Till men are fill'd with him, and feel how vain,
Instead of the pure heart and innocent hands,
Are all the proud and pompous modes to gain
The smile of heaven;-till a new age expands
Its white and holy wings above the peaceful lands.

For look again on the past years;—behold,
Flown, like the night-mare's fearful dreams, away
Full many a horrible worship, that, of old,
Subdued the shuddering realms to its dark sway;
And crimes that fear'd not once the eye of day,
Rooted from men, without a name or place;
And nations blotted out from earth, to pay
The forfeit of deep guilt;-with glad embrace
The fair disburden'd lands welcome a nobler race.

Thus error's monstrous shapes from earth are driven;
They fade, they fly—but truth survives their flight;
Earth has no shades to quench that beam of heaven;
Each ray, that shone, in early time, to light
The faltering footsteps in the path of right,

The broader glow of brightness, shed to aid
In man's maturer day his bolder sight,

All blended, like the rainbow's radiant braid,
Pour yet, and still shall pour, the blaze that cannot fade.

Late, from this western shore, that morning chased
The deep and ancient night, that threw its shroud
O'er the green land of groves, the beautiful waste,
Nurse of full streams, and lifter up of proud
Sky-mingling mountains that o'erlook the cloud.
Erewhile, where yon gay spires their brightness rear,
Trees waved, and the brown hunter's shouts were loud
Amid the forest; and the bounding deer

Fled at the glancing plume, and the gaunt wolf yell'd near.

And where his willing waves yon bright blue bay
Sends up, to kiss his decorated brim,

And cradles, in his soft embrace, the gay
Young group of grassy islands born of him,
And, crowding nigh, or in the distance dim,

Lifts the white throng of sails, that bear or bring
The commerce of the world;-with tawny limb,
And belt and beads in sunlight glistening,

The savage urged his skiff like wild bird on the wing.

Then, all his youthful paradise around,

And all the broad and boundless mainland, lay
Cool'd by the interminable wood, that frown'd
O'er mound and vale, where never summer ray
Glanced, till the strong tornado broke his way
Through the grey giants of the sylvan wild;
Yet many a shelter'd glade, with blossoms gay,
Beneath the showery sky and sunshine mild,
Within the shaggy arms of that dark forest smiled.

There stood the Indian hamlet, there the lake
Spread its blue sheet that flash'd with many an oar,
Where the brown otter plunged him from the brake,
And the deer drank-as the light gale flew o'er,
The twinkling maize-field rustled on the shore;
And while that spot, so wild and lone and fair,
A look of glad and innocent beauty wore,
And peace was on the earth and in the air,
The warrior lit the pile, and bound his captive there :